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x360a Flight School


Tatanko
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This thread will be used to gauge interest in a training program for flying aerial vehicles in Battlefield 3. As I stated in another thread...

 

Never before BF3 have I seen a particular (but common and important) part of a game trouble so many people. It would seem that the majority of people playing the game, both on and off the forum, have absolutely no idea how to fly and have no comfortable environment in which to learn. I am no exception from this. They're really just transportation for me at the moment, not effective fighting vehicles. I desperately want to change that for myself, and it seems that many of you feel the same way.

 

I came to the conclusion that the only way to solve this problem was through training and education. It is my goal to see to it that anyone who has trouble flying in BF3 can learn to at least hold their own, if not hang with the professionals. The problem is, I am no expert myself. In fact, I am in as much need for these services as the people I hope to help.

 

So I'm looking at you, ace pilots of x360a, for help. Anyone who thinks they are half-decent at flying and wouldn't mind giving a little bit of their time to assist their fellow forum members in becoming better at aerial combat and transportation, please speak up. Reply to this thread, send me a PM, send me a message on Live, it doesn't matter... just get a hold of me.

 

My short-term objective is to compile a list of potential instructors and students. I would also appreciate some assistance in putting together a short "how-to" on aerial combat, including tips, controls, statistics, etc. and eventually even create a manual for instructors to use in teaching their students. Initially, it would be one-on-one instruction in order to maximize the effectiveness of the instruction. In the more long-term, I hope to be able to do weekend events or something of the like where we can fill a whole lobby with members (and friends) of x360a so that we can have a playground with which to teach.

 

 

 

 

First Class

 

Instructors

 

Jets

-REDEMPTIONDENIED (GT: REDEMPTIONDENIED)

-CGPSaint (GT: CGPSaint)

-XcS Dead Deer (GT: XcS Dead Deer)

-Rykkor (GT: Gazelly) (Guest Instructor)

 

Attack Helicopters

-FatalityBoyZahy (GT: FatalityBoyZahy)

-OrbitalDropSWATrooper (GT: ???)

-Koompbala (GT: Koompbala)

-intheshallow (GT: intheshallow)

-Tatanko (GT: Tatanko) (Chopper Gunner)

 

Scout Helicopters

-FatalityBoyZahy (GT: FatalityBoyZahy)

-OrbitalDropSWATrooper (GT: ???)

-Koompbala (GT: Koompbala)

-intheshallow (GT: intheshallow)

-Tatanko (GT: Tatanko) (Passenger Tactics)

-Rykkor (GT: Gazelly) (Guest Instructor on Passenger Tactics)

 

Students

 

Jets

-BIGbivvie (GT: Phil Bardsley)

-Achiever TM (GT: Achiever TM)

-demon00uk (GT: Demon00uk)

-secretkaos187 (GT: SecretKaos187)

-OrbitalDropSWATrooper (GT: ???)

-loganm223 (GT: PanicGull)

-CIF (GT: BloodngunsMrphy)

-Koompbala (GT: Koompbala)

-Insomnia5623 (GT: OMFG Insomnia)

-Hent High (GT: Hent High)

-Eternal Dawn (GT: Eternal Dawn)

-xPureSniper (GT: TheFatPrincesss)

-H0p3sfaIL (GT: h3nchman 20ne)

Attack Helicopters

-BIGbivvie (GT: Phil Bardsley)

-Achiever TM (GT: Achiever TM)

-demon00uk (GT: Demon00uk)

-loganm223 (GT: PanicGull)

-CIF (GT: BloodngunsMrphy)

-Insomnia5623 (GT: OMFG Insomnia)

-Hent High (GT: Hent High)

-Eternal Dawn (GT: Eternal Dawn)

-H0p3sfaIL (GT: h3nchman 20ne)

Scout Helicopters

-BIGbivvie (GT: Phil Bardsley)

-Achiever TM (GT: Achiever TM)

-demon00uk (GT: Demon00uk)

-loganm223 (GT: PanicGull)

-CIF (GT: BloodngunsMrphy)

-Insomnia5623 (GT: OMFG Insomnia)

-Hent High (GT: Hent High)

-Eternal Dawn (GT: Eternal Dawn)

-H0p3sfaIL (GT: h3nchman 20ne)

Edited by Tatanko
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Awesome idea :)

 

I don't think you need a full lobby to practice, can't you play with friends in a private match?

 

I wasn't aware that you could do private matches in BF3.

 

On Topic, I'm by no means the best of the best, but with 165 aerial kills and counting, I am more than willing to offer what expertise I have to those in need!

 

For the record, I am currently using:

 

Beam Scanning

Extinguisher

Heat Seekers

 

Beam Scanning is great because it reduces the time that it takes to lock on to enemy aircraft. I like to acquire lock on at which point a lot of enemy pilots will deploy flares. With Beam Scanning I can re-acquire target lock in under 3 seconds and generally score at least 1 hit. Follow up with guns and and voila! The Extinguisher is also spot on. I've found that 2 Heat Seekers generally leave me at roughly 9% Jet Health. Using the Extinguisher returns your Jet to 52% health, thus allowing your Jet to regenerate health normally. Flares are a one at a time get out of jail free card, but once you are hit, your Jet is toast. Heat Seekers as an offensive weapon aren't all that spectacular, but enemy pilots tend to become more predictable when they are being locked on and trying to evade. This lends itself well to lining up for a deflection shot with guns and results in more kills with guns than with Heat Seekers. I also like the Heat Seekers because I can acquire target lock on enemy Jets chasing my wingman and that will most likely get them to break off their attack. Hope some of this insight helps!

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I wasn't aware that you could do private matches in BF3.

After some research I found that BF3 does not include private matches in consoles just on PC version, but when you go to matchmaking options there is an option to play in a unranked match so I assumed it was for private matches.. I have to test this out tonight..

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I wasn't aware that you could do private matches in BF3.

 

On Topic, I'm by no means the best of the best, but with 165 aerial kills and counting, I am more than willing to offer what expertise I have to those in need!

 

For the record, I am currently using:

 

Beam Scanning

Extinguisher

Heat Seekers

 

Beam Scanning is great because it reduces the time that it takes to lock on to enemy aircraft. I like to acquire lock on at which point a lot of enemy pilots will deploy flares. With Beam Scanning I can re-acquire target lock in under 3 seconds and generally score at least 1 hit. Follow up with guns and and voila! The Extinguisher is also spot on. I've found that 2 Heat Seekers generally leave me at roughly 9% Jet Health. Using the Extinguisher returns your Jet to 52% health, thus allowing your Jet to regenerate health normally. Flares are a one at a time get out of jail free card, but once you are hit, your Jet is toast. Heat Seekers as an offensive weapon aren't all that spectacular, but enemy pilots tend to become more predictable when they are being locked on and trying to evade. This lends itself well to lining up for a deflection shot with guns and results in more kills with guns than with Heat Seekers. I also like the Heat Seekers because I can acquire target lock on enemy Jets chasing my wingman and that will most likely get them to break off their attack. Hope some of this insight helps!

 

 

While you seem to be a CAP pilot, I tend to fly in a Fighter-Bomber roll. I have the ECM Jammer, Air Radar, and Guided Missiles. The Radar shows ground and air targets, and I am never surprised by an enemy aircraft. When I engage aircraft, the gun is the go to weapon. More often than not I manage to get right behind an enemy aircraft and give them a burst. Almost all of the time I get a disable and much of the time I get the kill.

 

Guided missiles are great for harassing vehicles. It takes 3 to kill a tank, so I don't get all too many AT kills, but it does hurt them, usually cause them to panic(The tone) and helps the team quickly finish. It also one hits mortars, cars, and such. If people would use the SOFLAM, it would be even more dangerous and cause more damage.

 

I don't fly too much, but I do have 161 kills across all types of jets.

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You can also use the Fire from the Sky co-op mission to practice flying the helicopter. That's how I learned to fly the aircraft in this game. For tactics in real combat versus other players, however, your lobby idea is better. You could end up arranging a top gun school of sorts to practice maneuvers and the like.

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I didn't know there was such a thing as private matches in BF3, but if there is, it would make an excellent tool for this program. Are you interested in being either a student or instructor?

 

OK i checked the servers filters and there is an option to select unranked matches but I can't find any single match, so using player matches is not an option but since there is such filter DICE may add player matches to the servers eventualy.. who knows?

 

I would like to participate as a student. I can pilot choppers but slowly lol

Edited by Achiever TM
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The best way to get an empty lobby (you will need 8 people though), is to go to the server browser and go into your history. It will show servers you've played on (duh, history), and for some reason as DICE normal servers rotate, you should find a bunch of empty servers (0/24 players).

 

If you join by yourself, it won't let you play. You'll just stand there and the game will say "waiting for 7 more player." So Invite everyone or create a lobby first.

 

I don't know if people will then start joining the server at random afterward, but it gives a good head start to grabbing jets and helicopters to play around with.

 

You can't choose your map, but if you've played enough times, there should be a good map selection due to multiple servers with zero people to join.

 

I know, you're welcome. Wouldn't mind getting 24 people from here together and play a game with just us this way. Then I would have ammo boxes and medkits to use.

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While you seem to be a CAP pilot, I tend to fly in a Fighter-Bomber roll. I have the ECM Jammer, Air Radar, and Guided Missiles. The Radar shows ground and air targets, and I am never surprised by an enemy aircraft. When I engage aircraft, the gun is the go to weapon. More often than not I manage to get right behind an enemy aircraft and give them a burst. Almost all of the time I get a disable and much of the time I get the kill.

 

Guided missiles are great for harassing vehicles. It takes 3 to kill a tank, so I don't get all too many AT kills, but it does hurt them, usually cause them to panic(The tone) and helps the team quickly finish. It also one hits mortars, cars, and such. If people would use the SOFLAM, it would be even more dangerous and cause more damage.

 

I don't fly too much, but I do have 161 kills across all types of jets.

 

I was stoked to get the Guided Missile but I was a bit put off by how long it took to destroy a vehicle. I can certainly understand that it's fair to make it a 3 hit kill, but once you factor in the time it takes to line up 3 strafing runs it becomes a moot point time wise. I prefer to prioritize enemy air vehicles and once the skies are clear I strafe tanks and flag points with my guns. If we should find ourselves in the same match I'll keep your ass clear and you can go about blowing shit up on the ground!

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I was stoked to get the Guided Missile but I was a bit put off by how long it took to destroy a vehicle. I can certainly understand that it's fair to make it a 3 hit kill, but once you factor in the time it takes to line up 3 strafing runs it becomes a moot point time wise. I prefer to prioritize enemy air vehicles and once the skies are clear I strafe tanks and flag points with my guns. If we should find ourselves in the same match I'll keep your ass clear and you can go about blowing shit up on the ground!

 

 

Probably the most unbalanced thing in the game is the repair tool. That thing repairs so fast that I can keep making passes on a tank all game and not destroy it. Like I said, better for harassing when other ground vehicles are attacking a tank too, plus SOFLAM is supposed to make it more powerful, but no one ever uses it.

 

My priority targets are jets, helos, ground targets. It is just jets go down so often because I I usually play with a team of 5+ stingers, lol. I often find myself without air targets.

 

Rocket pods are useless as hell. I've fired every round into a target before and no kill. I was disappointed we couldn't have bombs. BF2 had dumb bombs that were damn powerful.

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Imo, all the basic training you need:

 

Change chopper sticks to Legacy.

Know how to control jets and somehow get yourself 300 points for Flares, though it can be tough....enemy tanks seem to always have good engineers constantly repairing. That or the guns are just useless :/

 

If you're flying a jet it also helps a LOT to have friendlies spotting tanks and jets, but at least the latter you can find/spot yourself.

 

Anyways, I'll join as a student. Hopefully I'll be top of the class :)

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Flying the choppers and jets aren't hard, its the damn Stingers that take you out, even if you do have flares. I know some great tips for the Attack/Scout Helicopters, not so much for the jets, but that doesn't mean i ain't completely shit, thanks to some awesome jet games like Ace Combat and HAWX.

 

To start off, just practice in the co-op level, Fire From the Sky on Easy, before you start flying,change the heli sticks controls to the one you feel the most comfortable, me personally,I pick Legacy, at first just learn the basic flying maneuvers and just let your gunners do most of the work, and every so often, try to shoot at targets such as the BMP's or Mobile AA's. Keep practicing, and the better you do, start shooting more often yourself and once you find this level to do easy on the Hard Difficulty as the pilot, your pretty much set to go for Multiplayer.

 

I'd like to sign up as an Instructor myself but for the Attack/Scout Helicopters, while for the Jets I'd like to be a student if this is possible.

Edited by OrbitalDropSWATrooper
Forgot to mention a tip.
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While you seem to be a CAP pilot, I tend to fly in a Fighter-Bomber roll. I have the ECM Jammer, Air Radar, and Guided Missiles. The Radar shows ground and air targets, and I am never surprised by an enemy aircraft. When I engage aircraft, the gun is the go to weapon. More often than not I manage to get right behind an enemy aircraft and give them a burst. Almost all of the time I get a disable and much of the time I get the kill.

 

Guided missiles are great for harassing vehicles. It takes 3 to kill a tank, so I don't get all too many AT kills, but it does hurt them, usually cause them to panic(The tone) and helps the team quickly finish. It also one hits mortars, cars, and such. If people would use the SOFLAM, it would be even more dangerous and cause more damage.

 

I don't fly too much, but I do have 161 kills across all types of jets.

I bring the SOFLAM with my recon and set it up all the time but it seems no one has guided missiles to take advantage of it. That and it seems like people on the other team always blow it up after a couple minutes. Probably because I haven't learned the best places to set it up yet.
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I'd be willing to help others learn to fly. I've got just over 200 Jet kills, and I'm getting to be a solidly reliable helicopter pilot, so i'll share what i can there

 

This being said, I do use default controls for the Jet and Legacy for the chopper. Some say that legacy feels more natural for the jet, but I don't believe so as I tried making a switch after having logged 12 hours in a jet on default control

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